


who cares about flowers?

by bxrnes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Coming Out, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, okay heres the thing- i started writing this before season 7, post-season 6, pre-season 7, so whatever happens when season 7 comes out...... hope this helps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 23:04:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15375366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bxrnes/pseuds/bxrnes
Summary: "You'll never catch him waiting for May flowers." Rosa muses, her hand darting out from under the awning to catch a few droplets in her palm. She smiled gently. "He's so different now. I'm glad this is the same."In which Lance Mcclain pieces himself back together as the sky above him falls apart.





	who cares about flowers?

**Author's Note:**

> hey! this fic was being written between season 6 and 7, im just not a fast enough writer to get it posted. season 7 came out last night, i don't know how i'll work it into this fic but im gonna fix it. im gonna fix it for you guys i swear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting back to Earth is easy. Long, but easy. Getting ready to face everyone there? Not so much.
> 
>  
> 
> They were never really great at the team building exercises.

Understanding how time passes in space is... difficult. Lance never put much thought into it, never realizing time was passing at different speeds.

 Nothing could have prepared him to come back to Earth and learn five years had gone. It had only been two for him. Four for Keith.

Five years for his mother, who didn't know why he never came home, who never got a straight answer from the Garrison, who had more than once stepped outside to gaze up, her shoulders shaking and fists clenched. Smiling sadly as Lance's younger cousins questioned his whereabouts.

"He's out saving the universe!" She'd quietly exclaim, crouched next to them and pointing at the stars. His oldest sister, Veronica, would lock eyes with her, hurt scrawled across her features, split away and leave the room running upstairs to call Iverson like she did every month.

"Any news?" She whispered to him, listening as her cousins shrieked, the subject clearly changed. A deep sigh over the line gave her all she needed to know. She would jab at the END button and toss her phone across her bed, angry tears starting to pool in her eyes.

But five years is a long time. Acceptance comes after the first. Veronica's calls stopped. Rosa was starting to feel resigned. After year two the kids stopped asking for him. 

The McClain family was finally healing.

Right up until there was a knock at the door, the sound almost unheard over the rain. Rosa pulled the door open and gasped, her hands flying up to her clutch at her chest. 

" _Lance!_ "

 

 

* * *

 

Lance startled awake from a nightmare, phantom hands pressed against his cheek as he felt the fading residual pain of his soul filling up all the cracks and crevices in his body. He took a deep breath and slumped back down into his bunk, Allura's face still swimming in his mind, tears threatening to fall as she felt Lance's heartbeat.

When he had decided to leave and join the Garrison, he never imagined he would die in space, in a giant robotic lion, and be revived by an alien he had a crush on. How was he supposed to tell his mom?  _"Hey, mom. I'm alive. I mean, I wasn't for about 2 minutes out there, but my friend Allura who's a princess of an alien species brought me back!"_

Definitely not a conversation he wants to have. 

He rolled out of bed with a groan and threw on a shirt, not bothering with his routine. He was way too tired to care. He regretted it almost immediately, padding out on cold floors towards the cockpit and diving into his seat with a wince. He reached out to press a finger against the button for the comms.

"Anyone up?" 

Silence. He leaned back and sighed, looking out the front windows to see all the other lions laying around him. They were stopped for a break from the long journey to Earth, taking a pit stop to sleep on a random planet. Lance wrapped his arms around his knees and tugged them closer to his body, curling in on himself and laying his cheek on his knees. He kept watching the Lions for lack of something better to do. Shiro was in Pidge's lion with them, not quite yet ready to fly on his own, not that anyone knew if Black would let him anyways.

His comm crackled to life and he jumped forward, Keith's voice cutting through the unsettling silence he was wallowing in.

"Lance? I was getting dressed. You need something?" 

He briefly considered not responding, instead just telling him later that he fell back asleep. He sighed a little and held down the button. "Hey, Keith. No, I was just seeing if anyone else was awake. I can't get back to sleep." 

He heard Keith huff. "Not like you to wake up early." He chuckled a bit awkwardly, and Lance heard him let out a breath and let go of the button. 

_He really doesn't know how to talk to me, huh?_ Lance thought to himself, amused (and a bit sad). He hadn't let go of the button, so he just started talking again. Rambling about nonsense. Anything to pass the time, to fill the silence. Keith would static crackle back in to agree, to make comments, and even just to laugh. He didn't know how long they had been talking, a whole varga must have passed before the comm screeched to life from another Lion. 

"Hey, you guys mind shutting up?" Came Pidge's sleep-heavy voice, an audible yawn coming through. "All our cots are in the same place near the cockpit. I could hear you idiots yabbering all morning."

Lance flushed a bright red, thanking all the lucky stars that he was alone in Red. Keith's only response was to snort. "If Shiro can sleep through your chainsaw snoring, I think you can handle light conversation from across the room over a speaker."

Pidge cackled and let go, cutting out. He watched as Green stood up and stretched, padding towards Black to swipe at her front paws.

"O-ay! Oka-" he heard Keith cut in and out and Pidge had Green rock Black side to side. "Okay! It won't happen again!" Lance laughed, standing up and stretching, his limbs sore from being folded up in his chair for so long. He leaned forward to briefly hold down the comm button again. "I'm gonna get dressed." He didn't wait for a response, instead heading towards his haphazard pile of kinda clean laundry. He picked out what he needed, spinning around to look for his suit. Once he put his helmet back on, he'd be able to talk with the team hands-free. 

Slumping back down in his chair with a huff, he stroked at one of Red's panels, cooing at her softly. "You ready to fly all day again, baby? We still have a long way to go." The only response he received was a slight nudge in his mind and a disgusted noise from Keith in his helmet.

"You jealous, mullet? Red likes me now, don't you?" He reached out to pat her again, murmuring to her loud enough for Keith to hear. 

"Oh yeah, Lance? Wonder how Blue is treating Allura."

Ouch. He was pretty much over Blue closing him off and choosing Allura, coming to terms with the fact that it was necessary to keep Voltron intact, but it still stung. He had always felt like him and Blue had a connection that was different from the other paladins and their Lions, and her rejection came so soon after Black's he almost convinced himself on the spot that he wasn't good enough to be a paladin.

But then Red had.. _beckoned_ to him, reaching out and tugging at his walls, healing him. She was a bit wilder then Blue, quicker to act on her own, and not afraid to project how she felt directly into Lance. He almost understood why Keith the way he was before, having Red in his mind. 

Even with the switch, he knows he'll be back with her someday, no matter what. 

Deep in thought, he missed Hunk cutting in to say hello. Everyone started to get up, all filtering in one by one. Lance finally chimed in with a " _Hey, guys._ " Before he went quiet again. The Lions stretched into life, and everyone moved a bit closer (maybe subconsciously) as they chattered away. When everyone was finally ready to take off, Lance finally dropped in a few jokes before they set off on their long flight.

They usually fell silent after the first varga, conversation topics worn thin. Its been about a week of this, long flights and quiet nights alone. It gave Lance a chance to collect himself, preparing himself to face Earth again.

Lance felt.. cheated. Like he missed the fun years between age 17 and 19. Becoming an adult, getting used to it, and then living it. Instead, he was thrust into this role, needing to be an adult too early. He's sure he probably has PTSD, and he'll realize it when he sits down to think about how many lives his actions cost. He had a wall built that he knew was going to crumble soon, and when it did, he needed to be _home._

_Too bad getting there is giving me such a long time to stew in my emotions._

For once, Lance was planning on being selfish. He'd focus on himself instead of the entire universe, escape some of the pressure.

They stopped halfway through the day on a planet with a mall, leaving the lions outside as they hunted for some space food. Piping hot goo always hit the spot with empty rumbling stomachs (not really, but the paladins were all too scared to try anything else, despite Allura and Coran's reassurances as they crunched through things that wriggled.)

Lance was thinking about checking out the alien moisturizer, his skin a little tight from dehydration, seeing as water sometimes was a bit harder to find. The food court was much easier to navigate with Allura, as she knew all the good goo and best deals for some broke teenagers flying through space.

Lance was stopped at a both covered in jars, dipping his fingers into the ones that the shopkeeper had told Allura were samples in a foreign rumbling language. She had smiled and thanked him in his guttural tongue, making Lance raise an eyebrow, impressed.

Allura simply rolled her eyes at him and gestured towards the table. "The ones without the lids you can touch and smell to see if you like them." Hence the dipping. Keith sidled up next to him and snagged the jar out of his hands, lifting it way above his head and squinting at it, pretending to read the language on it.

Ever since he got back, he'd been... loose. More jokes, more teasing, more laughs. Lance sighed and reached for it, knowing Keith's new game of rubbing his height in his face. Finally giving in to what he wanted, he jumped up, snatching it back and stepping away. 

"Don't be a dick, mullet." He only got a laugh in return, watching as he spun around and walked away, waving at Pidge through the crowd and crashing into their side at a different booth, their conversation inaudible. Ignoring the feeling he felt from watching Keith throw his head back and laugh, he turned back to the vendor and slid him some coins. The moisturizer smelled kinda like the streets after it rained, but he's learned that most things smell different to everyone. Has to be some sort of popular alien trait or chemical. 

He wandered from table to table, picking things up and turning them over in his hands, smoothing his palms over rocks and sculptures. Strange gravity-defying toys sat on tables, spinning lonely and throwing off colors he almost couldn't comprehend. The strangeness of it all made him kinda dizzy and found himself stopping to close his eyes and block the noise out more than once in the overcrowded area.

Knowing he was being a drag, he had decided to stay split off from the group, but it still stung when nobody tried to catch up or invite him back over, when Hunk just shrugged and nodded, quickly jumping back in his previous conversation when Lance asked if it was cool to take off on his own. 

_You're being dramatic._ He thought to himself, resisting the urge to stomp away like a child. Instead, he headed towards a more quiet spot; a corner occupied by shops that were full of crystals and books. Smoke was rising from strange balls and waters, alien herbs and plants strung up or bagged. The familiarity of it pulled him, the scent clogging his head when he pulled the door open.

_Do aliens have incense?_

His thought was answered by a voice not unlike that of a snake slipping through sand. "Incense? What is that?"

Lance jumped backward, slamming into a bookshelf and tipping knick knacks off the top. He reached out, quickly catching them as they fell, the shopkeeper rushing forward to lend an extra- ahem- to lend a  _few_ extra arms. "Sorry sorry sorry!" He rushed out, frantically placing the items back up on the top shelf, the person behind him chuckling.

"It's alright, paladin. Many enter my shop flustered and confused, and most leave the same way. Would you mind being flustered further?" They moved in front of him, reaching out with what clearly was one of their 4 arms. Translucent skin, Lance could see what might be purple blood running through their whole body and clasped their surprisingly warm hand. "I am Mesvo," was all he was given before he was pulled in close, Mesvo's pupil-less and white-less dark yellow eyes boring into Lance's. "Why are you so troubled, boy?" Lance gulped and tugged his arm out of their grasp and tried to move away.

"I have no idea what you mean. I'm not confused _or_ troubled." He rubbed his hands together self consciously, inching towards the door as those alien eyes followed him, unblinking. "What are you missing? Is it your planet? A lover?" 

Mesvo waved him closer. "Do not be afraid. I have a gift. I can tell that you are a long way from home. Let me read your heart."

Lance didn't move.  _What if they tell me something I don't want to know? What if-_ he never got to finish the thought, because he was shoved towards the counter, a chair being yanked out to face another sitting nearby. "Sit."

He sat. 

They faced each other, and Mesvo held a lit candle between them. "Hold your palm open and above to flame, boy. Clear your mind." He complied, his palm warm and eyes closed. 

"I sense water, and longing. I'm smelling brine. I feel wet on my skin. Do you live in a body of salted water?" They questioned, tapping his hand to get him to open his eyes and answer. "Well," Lance jumped in, explaining Earth and the ocean, how the moon pulls the waves, and many other things to this stranger in the dark shop. He never let go of their hand, leaning in to rant, animated and gesturing wildly. Mesvo sat quietly, patiently, absorbing it all as the wax ran down the sides of the candle onto their robe, their hand loose around it. 

Lance noticed and frowned. "Oh! I'm so sorry. I got carried away! Let me help you-" he stood up, only to be pushed back down gently. "Here is what I have to tell you, and what you must remember. You mustn't be scared. The night the sky is its brightest, look towards the guiding light for answers. It will hurt to breathe, and taste so bitter, but you must be brave." The lights in the shop dimmed, and it seemed as if the world had slowed around them as Mesov peeked up towards Lance, eyes faintly glowing in the dark. "You must go. Now." Pulled to his feet. Spun towards the door. Shoved. "Something is about to change your path. I cannot interfere." 

Faster than he could say quiznak, Lance found himself standing in outside, blinking against the brightness and the noise, spinning around to find the shop was gone. Lance grimaced and swore, throwing his hands up and hurrying back the way he came from. " _Why do I always get sucked into the weird shit?"_ He thought to himsef, cringing at what he knows Keith is gonna have to say about him splitting away from the group. 

 

He stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted him, the world coming to a standstill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i could wax poetry about lance all day

**Author's Note:**

> [EDIT] OKAY so this chapter only has a few days left before it deletes from my drafts so here it is. its bad i KNOW but im open to suggestions and ideas! season 7 really shut down anything creative in my brain it was so bad.  
> 


End file.
